‘So unnecessary’: Republicans pile on DeSantis over Disney

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and other potential GOP presidential hopefuls slammed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' handling of his ongoing feud with Disney this week.

"That's not the guy I want sitting across from President Xi [Jinping] ... or sitting across from [President Vladimir] Putin and trying to resolve what's happening in Ukraine, if you can't see around a corner [Disney CEO] Bob Iger created for you,” Christie said Tuesday during a livestreamed interview with Semafor, adding: “I don’t think Ron DeSantis is a conservative, based on his actions towards Disney.”

DeSantis has been in a back-and-forth with Disney over the control over the thousands of acres that’s home to the Magic Kingdom and other theme parks. In February, Disney quietly, through a bureaucratic vote, gained back control of the Orlando-area park — though state officials didn’t learn of it until March. Disney’s move left DeSantis administration officials scrambling to respond, and the governor ordered an investigation into the California-based corporation. DeSantis is widely expected to run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, but has not yet announced his bid.

Former President Donald Trump also criticized DeSantis' feud with Disney on Tuesday, writing in a Truth Social post that DeSantis is being "absolutely destroyed by Disney."

"Disney’s next move will be the announcement that no more money will be invested in Florida because of the Governor — In fact, they could even announce a slow withdrawal or sale of certain properties, or the whole thing. Watch! That would be a killer. In the meantime, this is all so unnecessary, a political STUNT! Ron should work on the squatter MESS!" Trump said.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who has strongly hinted at a 2024 bid, said DeSantis’ feud with Disney is becoming a tit-for-tat because it's not going as he had planned.

“Look, this has gone from kind of going after a headline to something that has devolved into an issue, and it convolutes the entire Republican message,” Sununu said on CNN Monday night. “I just don't think — it's not good for Governor DeSantis. I don't think it's good for the Republican party.”

The Nikki Haley-launched leadership PAC Stand for America PAC said in a statement that after the Florida governor's latest bid to “one-up Mickey Mouse after a devastating and embarrassing blow to his efforts to rein in Disney World, Ron DeSantis has proposed some new neighbors to the amusement park – criminals.” The former ambassador to the United Nations launched her presidential bid in February.

The PAC’s statement references DeSantis’ comments Monday that Florida might consider building a prison next to land owned by Disney.

A spokesperson for DeSantis did not immediately respond for a request to comment. At a press conference on Monday, DeSantis announced that the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature will attempt to change state law to subject the company theme parks to new inspections and said that Disney is “not superior to the laws that are enacted by the people of the state of Florida. That’s not going to work, that’s not going to fly.”

In the interview, Christie said that he’ll make a decision in the next couple of weeks on whether he’ll run for president in 2024. Christie was seen speaking to more than three dozen of his former staffers and advisors about a possible 2024 presidential run Monday night in Washington.

“If we go forward, we want all of you to be with us,” Christie told the room Monday. “Thank you to all of you for everything you’ve already done for us. It’s been really, really an amazing ride. And you know what? It might not just be over yet.”

Christie said Tuesday the field for 2024 looks “vacant compared to what I dealt with in 2016.”

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Biden administration developing plan to get Covid vaccines to the uninsured

The Biden administration plans to roll out a new initiative this week guaranteeing free Covid vaccines, treatments and tests for the uninsured into 2024, two people briefed on the matter told POLITICO.

The program comes as the White House prepares to wind down its pandemic response operation. It also represents an effort to ensure vulnerable Americans can still access shots and treatments once the government shifts broader responsibility for Covid care to the private sector.

Biden officials are preparing to begin that so-called commercialization process later this year. Under its forthcoming plan for the uninsured, the administration would keep a limited supply of vaccines, therapeutics and tests on hand to distribute free for months after the transition.

The people briefed on the matter cautioned that the plan’s specifics are not yet final and could still change. An HHS spokesperson did not immediately comment on the details of the program.

The administration, for example, has yet to finalize contracts with vaccine makers Moderna and Pfizer to purchase additional shots for the program. It is also still building out a distribution network to continue administering vaccines and treatments to the uninsured.

But HHS has set aside as much as $1.1 billion for the program, with the hope that it will keep Covid care free for uninsured adults through at least the summer of 2024, the people briefed on the matter said. Much of that money would go toward purchasing new vaccines in the fall, when drugmakers are expected to update their shots, and paying its distribution partners to administer them.

The stockpile for the uninsured will likely be small, given the lack of continued demand for the vaccine. Fewer than 40,000 people are now getting vaccinated per day as the pandemic recedes in people’s minds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the lowest rate since the Covid shots became widely available.

Officials have estimated they probably have enough of the antiviral Paxlovid on hand to cover future demand for the treatment from the uninsured.

The population that would qualify for free care would also be somewhat limited. There are about 30 million adults without health insurance, though that number could grow as pandemic-era protections expire and more people lose their Medicaid coverage. A separate, pre-existing federal program will continue providing free vaccinations for uninsured children.

Still, the program has taken on heightened importance within the administration amid scrutiny of its plans to hand off major responsibilities tied to a pandemic still killing more than 1,300 a week, according to the CDC.

Officials are particularly eager to avoid reports of low-income Americans going without Covid treatments because they can’t afford to pay out-of-pocket prices likely to reach hundreds of dollars per dose.

Top health officials, including CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O'Connell, are slated to appear Wednesday before Congress to discuss their priorities for the coming year.

Both Moderna and Pfizer are planning to charge at least $110 per dose for their vaccines on the private market, though they argue much of that cost will be covered for those who have insurance.

And while the companies have pledged to make the shots free for the uninsured through "patient assistance" programs, Biden officials remain skeptical they will be structured in a way that makes the vaccines easily accessible.

“We are going to have a plan to make sure that uninsured Americans continue to get access to vaccines and treatments for free,” White House Covid response coordinator Ashish Jha said in March on the “In the Bubble” podcast. “This is a really important goal, and we have set aside money to make sure we can meet that goal.”

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McHenry clashes with SEC's Gensler over crypto crackdown

House Republicans ripped into SEC Chair Gary Gensler at his first oversight hearing in 18 months, claiming his crackdown on cryptocurrency has failed to bring stability to digital asset markets.

“Your approach is driving innovation overseas and endangering American competitiveness,” Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) said Tuesday.

Cryptocurrency lobbyists have been pushing lawmakers for months to take a more aggressive tack with Gensler, who has significantly dialed up SEC enforcement since last year's spectacular collapse of the FTX exchange, setting its sights on some of the biggest companies like Coinbase.

Gensler has long argued that much of the lightly regulated $1 trillion market violates U.S. securities rules because many of the products consist of unregistered securities.

Gensler, an ally of top progressives like Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has been on a collision course with McHenry since the GOP took control of the House in January. The veteran regulator's turbocharged rulemaking agenda includes planned overhauls of the private equity industry and stock market trading, along with a sweeping climate change proposal that Republicans have battered with claims of government overreach.

But much of the fireworks Tuesday focused on crypto. McHenry – along with other Republicans like Reps. French Hill of Arkansas and Bill Huizenga of Michigan – attacked Gensler over his approach to regulation. They said he was focused too much on enforcement and not enough on providing clarity for the industry. They also blasted the SEC chair for stonewalling their efforts to investigate his response to the FTX failure.

In one contentious exchange, McHenry challenged Gensler to explain whether Ether — the second-largest crypto token after Bitcoin — is a security, while hinting at a potential turf war between the SEC and another regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam, whose agency oversees derivatives products, has said that Ether falls under the CFTC’s jurisdiction.

“Do you think it serves the market for an object to be viewed by the commodities regulators as a commodity and the securities regulator to be viewed as a security? Do you think that provides safety and soundness for the products?” McHenry asked Gensler, who led the CFTC during the Obama administration. “I think `no' should be a very simple answer for you here.”

But Gensler declined, citing a longstanding precedent for SEC officials to not comment on the “facts and circumstances” of specific cases. Instead, he offered a high-level response explaining the SEC’s test for determining whether an asset is a security.

The SEC chair called on exchanges, brokers and issuers to comply with the same rules that Wall Street follows.

“It’s not a matter of a lack of clarity,” Gensler said. “This is a field that in the main is built up around non-compliance.”

Democrats, led by ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), defended Gensler’s digital asset strategy. Waters argued that his approach marked a “stark difference” from that of previous SEC officials.

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Abortion pill manufacturer to pay $765K to U.S. to settle suit over incorrect labeling

Just days before the Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to preserve access to a key abortion medication, the Justice Department issued a routine, but little-noticed announcement that the manufacturer of the drug — Danco Laboratories — had settled claims it violated customs laws.

Further, the federal government will award a bounty-like payment of about $116,000 to the anti-abortion legal entity that blew the whistle on the alleged violations.

Danco’s only product is mifepristone, the drug at the center of the legal case before the Supreme Court and one of two parts of most medication abortions in the U.S.

Under the settlement dated March 31 and released last week, Danco agreed to pay $765,000 to the U.S. to resolve allegations that, from 2011 to 2019, the company failed to both properly label imports of the drug as originating in China and pay customs duties on imports lacking those labels.

Under the deal, Danco denied the allegations leveled by the Life Legal Defense Foundation in a lawsuit filed in a Sherman, Texas, federal court back in January 2021. However, the drugmaker said it was settling to “avoid the delay, uncertainty, inconvenience, and expense of protracted litigation,” according to the agreement.

The DOJ’s April 12 press release about the settlement names Danco, but does not mention the now high-profile abortion drug at the center of the dispute, mifepristone.

"Danco is committed to operating ethically and legally and reaffirms that this case did not concern the safety or efficacy of Danco’s product," the company said in a statement. "The settlement allows Danco to continue to focus on providing high quality, safe, and effective medication to women in the United States."

Life Legal, a Napa, Calif.-based nonprofit group that opposes abortion, brought its suit under whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act. That allows third parties to file challenges on behalf of the U.S. government and claim between 15 percent and 30 percent if the action is successful.

Life Legal will receive approximately $116,000 from Danco’s payments to the Justice Department over the next roughly nine months, according to the settlement.

In a particularly awkward provision for Danco, which was specifically founded to ease access to medication abortion by distributing mifepristone in the U.S., the drug firm agreed to pay over $46,000 directly to the anti-abortion organization to cover its legal fees and costs related to the suit.

The suit was filed nine days after Joe Biden was sworn into office in January 2021, seemingly setting up a showdown between a president who supports abortion rights and the drugmaker. In accordance with federal law, the complaint was kept under seal while the government investigated. A judge unsealed portions of the records earlier this month.

Last week, the Justice Department and Danco asked the Supreme Court to preserve access to mifepristone after a lower court suspended FDA approval of the drug. Justice Samuel Alito issued a short-term stay while the court considers the request.

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Macron doubles down on French 'independence' amid pension reform crisis

The French president said fiscal discipline was needed to not depend on "foreign powers."

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Angela Merkel receives Germany's highest honor

Merkel is only the third German chancellor to receive the award, but some felt it was too soon to rank her among the country's greats.

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Two men charged with running covert Chinese ‘police station’ in Manhattan

NEW YORK — Brooklyn federal prosecutors Monday arrested and charged two men with operating an “undeclared overseas police station” in lower Manhattan on behalf of the Chinese government.

Prosecutors charged the men, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, with conspiring to act as agents of China as well as obstructing justice by deleting their communications with an official for China’s Ministry of Public Security.

Last year, the human rights group Safeguard Defenders accused China of operating more than 100 overseas police outposts in numerous foreign countries. The stations ostensibly provide diplomatic services to Chinese citizens abroad but also covertly harass Chinese dissidents, the group said.

The station identified Monday occupied an entire floor of an office building in Manhattan’s Chinatown before closing in 2022, according to prosecutors. During its operation, it was tasked with “helping locate a person of interest” to the Chinese government, prosecutors said.

The defendants were set to appear in court Monday afternoon.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said the case “reveals the Chinese government’s flagrant violation of our nation’s sovereignty.”

“Such a police station has no place here in New York City — or any American community,” Peace said in a statement Monday.

Brooklyn federal prosecutors also unsealed two other related cases Monday: one charging 34 officers of China’s national police with harassing Chinese nationals in New York and elsewhere in the U.S., and another charging eight Chinese government officials with directing an employee of a U.S. telecommunications company to remove Chinese dissidents from its platform.

Prosecutors described the 34 officers as having created a “troll farm” consisting of thousands of fake online personas on social media sites, including Twitter, to target Chinese nationals living in the U.S. who held political views in opposition to those of the People’s Republic of China or who promoted democracy in China.

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